I found it dense to the point of almost impenetrability and, if I’m honest, was glad to close the covers and move onto something else. Indeed it becomes so dense that it’s ultimately quite an unforgiving and arduous read. It’s a short novel, and a slight story, but dense in meaning and psychological/philosophical forensics. The fact that Veronica, always his superior, moved on to his best friend and made a showy rebuke of our boring author’s desires only serves to rub the salt in.Ī letter from he to her is so vitriolic as to take the breath away and so begins a decades long exile.īut the death of Veronica’s mother yields an unexpected bequeath to Tony that reopens his relationship with Veronica and a considerable amount of reflection on a past that was and a present that might have been. It’s a novel about reflection as an elderly man (Tony Webster) reflects on his life and how his pursuit of mediocrity – a failed marriage that bled no acrimony and an unspectacular fatherhood – has made his virginal fling in student life with the well heeled and worldly Veronica came to be the highlight of his life. It’s blackened page ends lends the novel a touch of mystery and that mystery does not disappear as its pages unfold. So it surprised me that I’d missed this from my fairly complete collection of winners.
Barnes’ 2011 short novel won the Booker Prize., usually a good enough reason to try out a new author (although fear has compelled my to assiduously avoid John Banville’s, The Sea).
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